Can't filter characters by gender

 A request to a List Resource contains a resource name and an API Key. Optionally filters, sorting, and response format can be specified. Refer to the resource reference below for a list of fields that can be filtered and sorted. A request to retrieve all male characters sorted by birth_date in XML format would look like:

http://api.giantbomb.com/characters/?api_key=ABCDEF123456&gender=M&sort=birth_date&format=xml

That URL becomes easier to understand if broken apart. The "/characters/" path refers to the /characters/ resource. (See a complete list of resources below.)

The query string holds the rest of the request. The api_key parameter specifies your API key. The gender parameter specifies that the request should be filtered by gender. Passing "M" or "F" to it will filter the result set by either male- or female-only characters. Finally, the sort parameter specifies that the result set should be sorted by the "birth_date" field.

There are no advanced filtering options available in the current API it seems - the only filters available are 'limit' and 'offset' for list resources.

"There are no advanced filtering options available in the current API it seems - the only filters available are 'limit' and 'offset' for list resources.

It would indeed be nice if we could pass any field as a parameter in order to use it as a filter - perhaps that would be too much load on the server, but it depends on whether a filter like that is more intensive than returning every single game in a list resource for the application to filter.

"

"We've purposefully decided to only allow specific fields to be filtered.  And you're right -- we haven't set any of those fields up yet.  Fortunately, it's as simple as me making a change to the config file, so it's really easy to do.

I'll spend some time today going through all the resources and making a list of things I think it would be cool to filter on.  I'll post that list here."

"andy said:

"We've purposefully decided to only allow specific fields to be filtered.  And you're right -- we haven't set any of those fields up yet.  Fortunately, it's as simple as me making a change to the config file, so it's really easy to do.

I'll spend some time today going through all the resources and making a list of things I think it would be cool to filter on.  I'll post that list here."

Great stuff!

Will these filterable fields need exact values to match or is there support for wildcards etc.? Will the documentation be updated to show what values are expected?

"

A few solutions I can think of:

"A few solutions I can think of:

name__contains=foo

name__startswith=foo

date__lt=01-01-2008

date__gt=01-01-2008

fname=:foo: - matches '*foo*'

fname=foo:: - matches 'foo*'

name = foo - matches 'foo'

fdate = 01-01-2008:01-01-2009 - matches between 01-01-2008 and 01-01-2009

(This ones rather ugly and is probably harder to parse...)

Dates could simply use 00 as a wildcard in any case - e.g. 00-00-2008 matches anything in 2008.

"

"I'm partial to the first set... it's very Django-ish."

I am also interested in some moderate filtering to build a couple apps I have in mind. Looks great and promising thus far tho. Thanks for this.

Still getting the same results as the original poster - any update on when filtering will be working?

I'm super excited to start using this. It's a hell of a great thing you're doing here.

Any update on this? Filtering on resource-lists would really be nice. Otherwise doing n queries for n releases there might exist for a game is bit much :-(

Sorry for resurrecting a very old thread, but has there been any progress on this? The documentation uses this example:

http://api.giantbomb.com/characters/?api_key=ABCDEF123456&gender=M&sort=birth_date&format=xml

If I plug in my own API key, that example doesn't even work, Princess Zelda is among the first results returned. Any updates?

Sorry to resurrect this thread again but it seems the issue was never resolved.

Any update?

@Monk said:

Sorry to resurrect this thread again but it seems the issue was never resolved.

Any update?

A newly redesigned site is on the horizon. I'm hoping it will include a greatly improved API, but I haven't heard anything about that.